Johnlli'Cameron 


The  edition  of  this  book  consists  of  six 
hundred  copies  on  this  Fabriano  hand 
made  paper,  and  the  type  distributed. 

This  copy  is  Number     %, 


Walt  Whitman:  Yesterday  &?  Today 


WALT  WHITMAN 


Yesterday  &  Today 


BY 

HENRY  EDUARD  LEGLER 


CHICAGO 

BROTHERS  OF  THE  BOOK 
1916 


COPYRIGHT  1916 

BY  THE 

BROTHERS  OF  THE  BOOK 


Ps 


To  DR.  MAX  HENIUS 

CONSISTENT  HATER  OF  SHAMS 

ARDENT  LOVER  OF  ALL  OUTDOORS 

AND  GENEROUS  GIVER  OF  SELF 

IN  GENUINE  FELLOWSHIP 

THIS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED 


M88241 


Walt  Whitman:  Yesterday  &  Today 


S 


I 

0  „-,'"",  °         "     '         '>    t    *   J 

ON  a  day  about  mid-year  in  1855,  the  conventional 
literary  world  was  startled  into  indecorous  behav 
ior  by  the  unannounced  appearance  of  a  thin  quarto 
sheaf  of  poems,  in  form  and  in  tone  unlike  anything  of 
precedent  issue.  It  was  called  Leaves  of  Grass,  and 
there  were  but  twelve  poems  in  the  volume.  No  author's 
name  appeared  upon  the  title  page,  the  separate  poems 
bore  no  captions,  there  was  no  imprint  of  publisher.  A 
steel  engraving  of  a  man  presumably  between  thirty  and 
forty  years  of  age,  coatless,  shirt  flaringly  open  at  the 
neck,  and  a  copyright  notice  identifying  Walter  Whit 
man  with  the  publication,  furnished  the  only  clues.  Un 
couth  in  size,  atrociously  printed,  and  shockingly  frank 
in  the  language  employed,  the  volume  evoked  such  a 
tirade  of  rancorous  condemnation  as  perhaps  bears  no 
parallel  in  the  history  of  letters.  From  contemporary 
criticisms  might  be  compiled  an  Anthology  of  Ana 
thema  comparable  to  Wagner's  Schimpf-Lexicon,  or  the 
Dictionary  of  Abuse  suggested  by  William  Archer  for 
Henrik  Ibsen.  Some  of  the  striking  adjectives  and 
phrases  employed  in  print  would  include  the  following, 
as  applied  either  to  the  verses  or  their  author: 

[9] 


The  slop-bucket  of  Walt  Whitman. 

A  bdief  in  the  preciousness  of  filth. 

Entirely  bestial. 

Nastiness  and  animal  insensibility  to  shame. 

Noxious  weeds. 

Impious  and  obscene. 

Disgusting  burlesque. 

Broken  out  of  Bedlam. 

Libidinousness  and  swell  of  self-applause. 

Defilement. 

Crazy  outbreak  of  conceit  and  vulgarity. 

Ithyphallic  audacity. 

Gross  indecency. 

Sunken  sensualist. 

Rotten  garbage  of  licentious  thoughts. 

Roots  like  a  pig. 

Rowdy  Knight  Errant. 

A  poet  whose  indecencies  stink  in  the  nostrils. 

Its  liberty  is  the  wildest  license;  its  love  the  essence 

of  the  lowest  lust! 
Priapus — worshipping  obscenity. 
Rant  and  rubbish. 
Linguistic  silliness. 
Inhumanly  insolent. 
Apotheosis  of  Sweat. 
Mouthings  of  a  mountebank. 
Venomously  malignant. 

[10] 


Pretentious  twaddle. 

Degraded  helot  of  literature. 

His  work,  like  a  maniac's  robe,  bedizened  with  flut 
tering  tags  of  a  thousand  colors. 

Roaming,   like   a   drunken   satyr,   with   inflamed 
blood,  through  every  field  of  lascivious  thought. 

Muck  of  abomination. 

A  few  quotations  from  the  press  of  this  period  will 
serve  to  indicate  the  general  tenor  of  comment: 

"The  book  might  pass  for  merely  hectoring  and  ludi 
crous,  if  it  were  not  something  a  great  deal  more 
offensive,"  observed  the  Christian  Examiner  (Boston, 
1856).  "It  openly  deifies  the  bodily  organs,  senses,  and 
appetites  in  terms  that  admit  of  no  double  sense.  The 
author  is  'one  of  the  roughs,  a  Kosmos,  disorderly, 
fleshly,  sensual,  divine  inside  and  out.  The  scent  of 
these  armpits  an  aroma  finer  than  prayer.'  He  leaves 
'washes  and  razors  for  foofoos,'  thinks  the  talk  about 
virtue  and  vice  only  'blurt,'  he  being  above  and  indiffer 
ent  to  both  of  them.  These  quotations  are  made  with 
cautious  delicacy.  We  pick  our  way  as  cleanly  as  we  can 
between  other  passages  which  are  more  detestable." 

In  columns  of  bantering  comment,  after  parodying 
his  style  of  all-inclusiveness,  the  United  States  Review 
(1855)  characterizes  Walt  Whitman  thus:  "No  skulker 
or  tea-drinking  poet  is  Walt  Whitman.  He  will  bring 
poems  to  fill  the  days  and  nights — fit  for  men  and 


women  with  the  attributes  of  throbbing  blood  and  flesh. 
The  body,  he  teaches,  is  beautiful.  Sex  is  also  beauti 
ful.  Are  you  to  be  put  down,  he  seems  to  ask,  to  that 
shallow  level  of  literature  and  conversation  that  stops 
a  man's  recognizing  the  delicious  pleasure  of  his  sex,  or 
a  woman  hers?  Nature  he  proclaims  inherently  clean. 
Sex  will  not  be  put  aside;  it  is  the  great  ordination  of 
the  universe.  He  works  the  muscle  of  the  male  and  the 
teeming  fibre  of  the  female  throughout  his  writings,  as 
wholesome  realities,  impure  only  by  deliberate  inten 
tion  and  effort.  To  men  and  women,  he  says,  you  can 
have  healthy  and  powerful  breeds  of  children  on  no  less 
terms  than  these  of  mine.  Follow  me,  and  there  shall 
be  taller  and  richer  crops  of  humanity  on  the  earth." 

From  Studies  among  the  Leaves,  printed  in  the 
Crayon  (New  York,  1856),  this  extract  may  be  taken: 
"With  a  wonderful  vigor  of  thought  and  intensity  of 
perception,  a  power,  indeed,  not  often  found,  Leaves  of 
Grass  has  no  identity,  no  concentration,  no  purpose — 
it  is  barbarous,  undisciplined,  like  the  poetry  of  a  half- 
civilized  people,  and  as  a  whole  useless,  save  to  those 
miners  of  thought  who  prefer  the  metal  in  its  unworked 
state." 

The  New  York  Daily  Times  (1856)  asks:  "What 
Centaur  have  we  here,  half  man,  half  beast,  neighing 
defiance  to  all  the  world?  What  conglomerate  of 
thought  is  this  before  us,  with  insolence,  philosophy, 


tenderness,  blasphemy,  beauty,  and  gross  indecency 
tumbling  in  drunken  confusion  through  the  pages?  Who 
is  this  arrogant  young  man  who  proclaims  himself  the 
Poet  of  the  time,  and  who  roots  like  a  pig  among  a  rot 
ten  garbage  of  licentious  thoughts?" 

"Other  poets,"  notes  a  writer  in  the  Brooklyn  Daily 
Eagle  (1856),  "other  poets  celebrate  great  events,  per 
sonages,  romances,  wars,  loves,  passions,  the  victories 
and  power  of  their  country,  or  some  real  or  imagined 
incident — and  polish  their  work,  and  come  to  conclu 
sions,  and  satisfy  the  reader.  This  poet  celebrates 
natural  propensities  in  himself;  and  that  is  the  way  he 
celebrates  all.  He  comes  to  no  conclusions,  and  does 
not  satisfy  the  reader.  He  certainly  leaves  him  what 
the  serpent  left  the  woman  and  the  man,  the  taste  of 
the  Paradise  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil, 
never  to  be  erased  again." 

"He  stalks  among  the  dapper  gentlemen  of  this  gen 
eration  like  a  drunken  Hercules  amid  the  dainty  dan 
cers,"  suggested  the  Christian  Spiritualist  (1856).  "The 
book  abounds  in  passages  that  cannot  be  quoted  in 
drawing  rooms,  and  expressions  that  fall  upon  ears 
polite  with  a  terrible  dissonance." 

Nor  was  savage  criticism  in  the  years  1855  and  1856 
limited  to  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  The  London  Critic, 
in  a  caustic  review,  found  this  the  mildest  comment 
that  Whitman's  verse  warranted:  "Walt  Whitman 

[13] 


gives  us  slang  in  the  place  of  melody,  and  rowdyism 
in  the  place  of  regularity.  *  *  *  Walt  Whit 
man  libels  the  highest  type  of  humanity,  and  calls  his 
free  speech  the  true  utterance  of  a  man;  we  who  may 
have  been  misdirected  by  civilization,  call  it  the  expres 
sion  of  a  beast." 

Noisy  as  was  this  babel  of  discordant  voices,  one 
friendly  greeting  rang  clear.  Leaves  of  Grass  had  but 
just  come  from  the  press,  when  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson, 
from  his  home  in  Concord,  under  date  of  July  21,  1855, 
wrote  to  the  author  in  genuine  fellowship: 

"I  give  you  joy  of  your  free  and  brave  thought.  I 
have  great  joy  in  it.  I  find  incomparable  things  said 
incomparably  well,  as  they  must  be.  I  find  the  cour 
age  of  treatment  which  so  delights  us,  and  which  large 
perception  only  can  inspire. 

"I  greet  you  at  the  beginning  of  a  great  career,  which 
yet  must  have  had  a  long  foreground  somewhere,  for 
such  a  start.  I  rubbed  my  eyes  a  little  to  see  if  this 
sunbeam  were  no  illusion;  but  the  solid  sense  of  the 
book  is  a  sober  certainty.  It  has  the  best  merits, 
namely,  of  fortifying  and  encouraging." 

Tracing  the  popular  estimates  of  Walt  Whitman 
through  the  next  five  years,  expressions  of  unmeasured 
disapproval  similar  to  those  quoted  may  be  found  in 
periodicals  and  in  the  daily  press,  with  here  and  there 
grudging  admission  that  despite  unseemly  tendencies, 


there  is  ^vident  originality  and  even  genius  in  the  pages 
of  this  unusual  book.  In  a  comparatively  temperate 
review,  August  4,  1860,  the  Cosmopolite,  of  Boston, 
while  deploring  that  nature  is  treated  here  without  fig- 
leaves,  declares  the  style  wonderfully  idiomatic  and 
graphic,  adding:  "In  his  frenzy,  in  the  fire  of  his  in 
spiration,  are  fused  and  poured  out  together  elements 
hitherto  considered  antagonistic  in  poetry — passion,  ar 
rogance,  animality,  philosophy,  brag,  humility,  rowdy 
ism,  spirituality,  laughter,  tears,  together  with  the  most 
ardent  and  tender  love,  the  most  comprehensive  human 
sympathy  which  ever  radiated  its  divine  glow  through 
the  pages  of  poems." 

A  contemporary  of  this  date,  the  Boston  Post,  found 
nothing  to  commend.  "Grass,"  said  the  writer,  mak 
ing  the  title  of  the  book  his  text,  "grass  is  the  gift  of 
God  for  the  healthy  sustenance  of  his  creatures,  and  its 
name  ought  not  to  be  desecrated  by  being  so  improperly 
bestowed  upon  these  foul  and  rank  leaves  of  the  poison- 
plants  of  egotism,  irreverance,  and  of  lust,  run  rampant 
and  holding  high  revel  in  its  shame." 

And  the  London  Lancet,  July  7,  1860,  comments  in 
this  wise:  "Of  all  the  writers  we  have  ever  perused, 
Walt  Whitman  is  the  most  silly,  the  most  blasphemous, 
and  the  most  disgusting.  If  we  can  think  of  any 
stronger  epithets,  we  will  print  them  in  a  second 
edition." 


II 

WHAT  were  these  poems  which  excited  such  vitri 
olic  epithets?  Taking  both  the  editions  of  1855 
and  of  the  year  following,  and  indeed  including  all  of 
the  four  hundred  poems  bearing  Whitman's  authorship 
in  the  three-quarters  of  a  half-century  during  which  his 
final  volume  was  in  the  making,  scarcely  half  a  dozen 
poems  can  be  found  which  could  give  offense  to  the 
most  prudish  persons.  Nearly  all  of  these  have  been 
grouped,  with  some  others,  under  the  general  sub-title 
Children  of  Adam.  There  are  poems  which  excite  the 
risibles  of  some  readers,  there  are  poems  which  read 
like  the  lists  of  a  mail-order  house,  and  others  which 
appear  in  spots  to  have  been  copied  bodily  from  a  gazet 
teer.  These,  however,  are  more  likely  to  provoke  good- 
natured  banter  than  violent  denunciatory  passion.  Even 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  whose  generous  greeting  and 
meed  of  praise  in  the  birth-year  of  Leaves  of  Grass  will 
be  recalled,  in  sending  a  copy  of  it  to  Carlyle  in  1860, 
and  commending  it  to  his  interest,  added:  "And  after 
you  have  looked  into  it,  if  you  think,  as  you  may,  that 
it  is  only  an  auctioneer's  inventory  of  a  warehouse,  you 
can  light  your  pipe  with  it." 

[17] 


Had  Whitman  omitted  the  few  poems  whose  titles  are 
given  here,  doubtless  a  few  readers  would  have  found 
his  formless  verses  either  curious  or  ludicrous,  or  merely 
stupid,  and  others  would  have  passed  them  by  as  un- 
meriting  even  casual  attention.  The  poems  which  are 
chiefly  responsible  for  a  controversy  which  raged  for 
half  a  century,  are  these: 

I  sing  the  body  electric. 

A  woman  waits  for  me. 

To  a  common  prostitute. 

The  dalliance  of  the  eagles. 

Wholly  dissociated  from  the  picturesque  personal 
ity  from  which  the  book  emanated,  Leaves  of  Grass 
bears  a  unique  story  margined  on  its  pages.  The  sprawl 
ing  types  whose  muddy  imprint  on  the  ill-proportioned 
pages  made  up  the  uncouth  first  edition  of  the  book, 
were  put  together  by  the  author's  hands,  and  the  sorry 
press  work  was  his  handiwork  as  well.  The  unusual 
preface  and  the  twelve  poems  that  followed  he  wrote 
in  the  open,  while  lounging  on  the  wharves,  while  cross 
ing  on  ferry-boats,  while  loitering  in  the  fields,  while  sit 
ting  on  the  tops  of  omnibuses.  His  physical  materials 
were  the  stubs  of  pencils,  the  backs  of  used  envelopes, 
scraps  of  paper  that  easily  came  to  hand.  The  same 
open-air  workshops  and  like  crude  tools  of  writing  he 
utilized  for  nearly  forty  years.  During  the  thirty-seven 
years  that  intervened  between  the  first  printing  of  his 

[18] 


Leaves  and  his  death  in  1892,  he  followed  as  his  chief 
purpose  in  life  the  task  he  had  set  himself  at  the  begin 
ning  of  his  serious  authorship — the  cumulative  expres 
sion  of  personality  in  the  larger  sense  which  is  manifest 
in  the  successive  and  expanding  editions  of  his  Leaves 
of  Grass.  That  book  becomes  therefore,  a  life  history. 
Incompletely  as  he  may  have  performed  this  self-im 
posed  task,  his  own  explanation  of  his  purpose  may  well 
be  accepted  as  made  in  good  faith.  That  explanation 
appears  in  the  preface  to  the  1876  edition,  and  amid  the 
multitude  of  paper  scraps  that  came  into  the  possession 
of  his  executors,  following  his  passing  away,  may  be 
found  similar  clues: 

"It  was  originally  my  intention,  after  chanting  in 
Leaves  of  Grass  the  songs  of  the  body  and  of  existence, 
to  then  compose  a  further,  equally-needed  volume,  based 
on  those  convictions  of  perpetuity  and  conservation 
which,  enveloping  all  precedents,  make  the  unseen  soul 
govern  absolutely  at  last.  I  meant,  while  in  a  sort  con 
tinuing  the  theme  of  my  first  chants,  to  shift  the  slides 
and  exhibit  the  problem  and  paradox  of  the  same  ardent 
and  fully  appointed  personality  entering  the  sphere  of 
the  resistless  gravitation  of  spiritual  law,  and  with  cheer 
ful  face  estimating  death,  not  at  all  as  the  cessation,  but 
as  somehow  what  I  feel  it  must  be,  the  entrance  upon 
by  far  the  greater  part  of  existence,  and  something 
that  life  is  at  least  as  much  for,  as  it  is  for  itself/' 


Too  long  for  repetition  here,  but  important  in  the 
same  connection  for  a  full  understanding  of  Walt  Whit 
man's  motives,  is  that  Backward  Glance  O'er  Travel'd 
Roads,  wherein  he  summed  up  his  work  in  fourteen 
pages  of  prose,  and  with  frank  egotism  appended  this 
anecdote  in  a  footnote  on  the  first  page  thereof:  "When 
Champollion,on  his  death  bed, handed  to  the  printer  the 
revised  proof  of  his  Egyptian  Grammar,  he  said  gayly, 
'Be  careful  of  this — it  is  my  carte  de  visite  to  posterity/  ' 

Undaunted  when  ridicule  poured  over  him,  evenly 
tranquil  when  abuse  assailed  him,  unemotional  when 
praise  was  lavished  upon  him,  unfalteringly  and  un- 
deviatingly  he  pursued  his  way.  The  group  headings 
which  were  added  in  successive  editions  of  his  book,  in 
dicate  the  milestones  of  his  journey  from  the  time  when 
the  Song  of  Myself  noted  the  beginning,  till  Whispers 
of  Heavenly  Death  presaged  the  ending.  Familiarity 
with  the  main  incidents  and  experiences  of  his  life  give 
to  the  several  annexes,  as  he  was  fond  of  calling  the 
additions  that  he  made  to  each  succeeding  issue  of  his 
Leaves,  the  clues  of  chapter  headings:  Children  of 
Adam;  Calamus;  Birds  of  Passage;  Sea-Drift;  By  the 
Roadside;  Drum-Taps;  Autumn  Rivulets;  Whispers  of 
Heavenly  Death;  Songs  of  Parting. 

A  check  list  of  his  principal  editions  of  Leaves  of 
Grass,  with  characteristics  noted,  would  serve  almost 
as  a  chronology  of  Whitman's  life  story. 

[20] 


1855 — FIRST  EDITION.  Twelve  poems  were  included 
in  this  edition.  They  are  without  distinctive  titles, 
though  in  later  issues  they  appeared  with  varying  titles, 
those  given  in  the  definitive  edition  being  the  following: 

Song  of  myself. 

Song  for  occupations. 

To  think  of  time. 

The  sleepers. 

I  sing  the  body  electric. 

Faces. 

Song  of  the  answerer. 

Europe. 

A  Boston  ballad. 

There  was  a  child  went  forth. 

My  lesson  complete. 

Great  are  the  myths. 

1856 — SECOND  EDITION.  In  this  edition,  the  second, 
there  are  thirty-two  poems.  The  poems  are  given  titles, 
but  not  the  same  ones  that  were  finally  included. 

1 860 — THIRD  EDITION.  The  number  of  poems  is  one 
hundred  and  fifty-seven. 

1867 — FOURTH  EDITION.  The  poems  have  grown  in 
number  to  two  hundred  and  thirty-six.  The  inclusion 
here  of  the  war  cluster  Drum-Taps,  and  a  rearrange 
ment  of  other  clusters,  marks  this  edition  as  a  notable 
one.  Drum-Taps  had  appeared  as  a  separate  volume 
two  years  earlier. 


1871 — FIFTH  EDITION.  A  total  of  two  hundred  and 
seventy-three  poems  are  here  classified  under  general 
titles,  including  for  the  first  time,  Passage  to  India,  and 
After  All  Not  to  Create  Only,  groups  which  prior  to  this 
date  were  issued  separately. 

1876 — SIXTH  EDITION.  This  issue  was  intended  as  a 
Centennial  edition,  and  it  includes  Two  Rivulets;  there 
are  two  hundred  and  ninety-eight  poems. 

1 88 1 — SEVENTH  EDITION.  Intended  as  the  comple 
tion  of  a  design  extending  over  a  period  of  twenty-six 
years,  Whitman  had  undertaken  an  extensive  revision 
of  what  he  termed  his  bible  of  democracy.  There  are 
three  hundred  and  eighteen  poems.  This  is  the  edition 
abandoned  by  the  publishers  because  threatened  with 
prosecution  by  the  district  attorney. 

1889 — EIGHTH  EDITION.  In  celebration  of  the 
author's  seventieth  birthday,  a  special  autograph  edi 
tion  of  three  hundred  copies  was  issued. 

1892 — NINTH  EDITION.  Whitman  supervised  the 
make-up  of  this  issue  during  his  last  illness. 

1897 — TENTH  EDITION.  Here  appeared  for  the  first 
time,  Old  Age  Echoes,  numbering  thirteen  poems. 

1902 — ELEVENTH  AND  DEFINITIVE  EDITION.  Issued 
by  the  literary  executors  of  Walt  Whitman — Horace  L. 
Traubel,  Richard  Maurice  Bucke,  and  Thomas  B. 
Karned. 

There  have  been  six  editions  of  Whitman's  complete 

I**] 


writings,  and  numerous  selections  from  Leaves  of 
Grass  have  been  published  under  the  editorship  of 
well-known  literary  men — among  them,  William  M. 
Rossetti,  Ernest  Rhys,  W.  T.  Stead,  and  Oscar  L. 
Triggs.  There  have  been  translations  into  German, 
French,  Italian,  Russian,  and  several  Asiatic  languages. 
"I  had  my  choice  when  I  commenc'd,"  he  notes  in  his 
Backward  Glance  of  1880;  "I  bid  neither  for  soft 
eulogies,  big  money  returns,  nor  the  approbation  of 

existing  schools  and  conventions Unstopp'd 

and  unwarp'd  by  any  influence  outside  the  soul  within 
me,  I  have  had  my  say  entirely  my  own  way,  and  put  it 
unerringly  on  record — the  value  thereof  to  be  decided 
by  time." 


[231 


Ill 

WITH  the  war-time  period  came  the  turning  point 
in  the  popular  estimate  of  Walt  Whitman.  No 
doubt,  too,  his  experiences  during  this  time  of  stress  and 
storm  influenced  the  rest  of  his  career  as  a  man  and  as 
a  writer.  His  service  as  a  volunteer  nurse  in  camp  and 
in  hospital  gave  him  a  sympathetic  insight  and  a  patri 
otic  outlook  tempered  with  gentleness  which  are  re 
flected  in  his  poetry  of  this  period,  published  under  the 
title  Drum-Taps.  His  well-known  song  of  sorrow,  O 
Captain,  My  Captain,  is  a  threnody  poignant  with 
genuine  feeling.  It  has,  more  than  any  others  of  his 
verses,  lyric  rather  than  plangent  quality.  When  Li 
lacs  Last  in  the  Dooryard  Bloomed,  and  The  Sobbing  of 
the  Bells  are  other  poems  belonging  to  this  distinctive 
group.  It  is  notable  that  in  his  lament  over  the  death 
of  Lincoln,  Whitman  gives  rhyme  as  well  as  rhythm  to 
the  verses. 

This  was  a  time  of  triumph  for  Whitman  in  a  literary 
sense.  In  Germany,  the  poet  Ferdinand  Freiligrath 
contributed  to  the  Allgemeine  Zeitung,  Augsburg,  May 
10,  1868,  a  long  article  in  praise  of  his  work.  In 
England,  his  poetry  attracted  the  attention  of  the 


Rossettis,  Tennyson,  John  Addington  Symonds.  Mrs. 
Anne  Gilchrist  defended  him  from  the  aspersions  cast 
upon  his  references  to  womanhood.  A  sympathetic 
and  friendly  tone  began  to  displace  the  collection 
of  distasteful  adjectives  which  had  been  his  meed 
heretofore. 

Then,  in  the  latter  part  of  1865,  occurred  an  episode 
which  drew  around  Whitman  a  circle  of  friends  keen  to 
resent,  and  active  to  condemn,  an  act  of  injustice  from 
one  high  in  authority.  Among  the  influential  friends 
who  rushed  to  his  defense  were  John  Burroughs  and 
William  Douglas  O'Connor,  and  the  events  which  drew 
their  fire  were  these: 

Whitman,  whose  health  was  shattered  by  his  untiring 
devotion  and  ministrations  to  ill  and  wounded  soldiers, 
had  been  given  a  minor  clerkship  in  the  Department  of 
the  Interior.  James  Harlan  was  Secretary  of  the  De 
partment.  He  had  been  a  Methodist  clergyman  and 
president  of  a  western  college.  When  his  attention  was 
called  to  Whitman's  authorship  of  Leaves  of  Grass,  the 
Secretary  characterized  the  book  as  "full  of  indecent 
passages,"  the  author  was  termed  "a  very  bad  man," 
and  was  abruptly  dismissed  from  the  position  he  had 
held  for  six  months. 

Whitman  meekly  accepted  the  curt  dismissal,  but 
William  Douglas  O'Connor  in  a  white  heat  of  indignation 
issued  a  pamphlet  which  flayed  the  astonished  Secretary 


of  the  Interior  as  a  narrow-minded  calumniator.     The 
pamphlet,  now  a  very  rare  document,  was  headed: 

THE  GOOD  GRAY  POET 

A  VINDICATION 

With  Celtic  fervor  and  eloquence,  William  Douglas 
O'Connor  made  his  plea  an  intercession  in  the  cause  of 
free  letters.  He  examined  the  entire  range  of  litera 
ture,  ancient  and  modern,  in  quest  of  parallels  that 
would  prove  Whitman's  book  by  comparison  to  be  a 
masterpiece  of  literature,  and  would  demonstrate  Mr. 
Secretary  Harlan  to  be  merely  a  literary  headsman.  Out 
of  many  pages  of  allusion  to  the  literary  productions  of 
the  great  writers  of  all  time  and  for  all  time,  some  char 
acteristic  passages  may  be  chosen: 

"Here  is  Dante.  Open  the  tremendous  pages  of  the 
Inferno.  What  is  this  line  at  the  end  of  the  twenty- 
first  canto,  which  even  John  Carlyle  flinches  from  trans 
lating,  but  which  Dante  did  not  flinch  from  writing? 
Out  with  Dante! 

"Here  is  the  book  of  Job:  the  vast  Arabian  landscape, 
the  picturesque  pastoral  details  of  Arabian  life,  the  last 
tragic  immensity  of  Oriental  sorrow,  the  whole  over 
arching  sky  of  Oriental  piety,  are  here.  But  here  also 
the  inevitable  'indecency/  Out  with  Job! 

"Here  is  Plutarch,  prince  of  biographers,  and  Hero 
dotus,  flower  of  historians.  What  have  we  now  ?  Traits 
of  character  not  to  be  mentioned,  incidents  of  conduct, 
accounts  of  manners,  minute  details  of  customs,  which 

[27] 


our  modern  historical  dandies  would  never  venture 
upon  recording.  Out  with  Plutarch  and  Herodotus! 

"Here  is  Shakespeare:  'indecent  passages'  everywhere; 
every  drama,  every  poem  thickly  inlaid  with  them; 
all  that  men  do  displayed,  sexual  acts  treated  lightly, 
jested  about,  mentioned  obscenely;  the  language  never 
bolted;  slang,  gross  puns,  lewd  words,  in  profusion. 
Out  with  Shakespeare! 

"Here  is  the  Canticle  of  Canticles:  beautiful,  volup 
tuous  poem  of  love  literally,  whatever  be  its  mystic 
significance;  glowing  with  the  color,  odorous  with  the 
spices,  melodious  with  the  voices  of  the  East;  sacred 
and  exquisite  and  pure  with  the  burning  chastity  of  pas 
sion,  which  completes  and  exceeds  the  snowy  chastity 
of  virgins.  This  to  me,  but  what  to  the  Secretary?  Can 
he  endure  that  the  female  form  should  stand  thus  in  a 
poem,  disrobed,  unveiled,  bathed  in  erotic  splendor? 
Look  at  these  voluptuous  details,  this  expression  of  de 
sire,  this  amorous  tone  and  glow,  this  consecration  and 
perfume  lavished  upon  the  sensual.  No!  Out  with 
Solomon ! 

"Here  is  Isaiah.  The  grand  thunder-roll  of  that 
righteousness,  like  the  lion-roar  of  Jehovah  above  the 
guilty  world,  utters  coarse  words.  Amidst  the  bolted 
lightnings  of  that  sublime  denunciation,  coarse  thoughts, 
indelicate  figures,  indecent  allusions,  flash  upon  the 
sight,  like  gross  imagery  in  a  midnight  landscape.  Out 
with  Isaiah! 

"Here  is  Montaigne.  Open  those  great,  those  virtu 
ous  pages  of  the  unflinching  reporter  of  man;  the  soul 
all  truth  and  daylight,  all  candor,  probity,  sincerity, 

[28] 


reality,  eyesight.  A  few  glances  will  suffice.  Cant  and 
vice  and  sniffle  have  groaned  over  these  pages  before. 
Out  with  Montaigne! 

"Here  is  Swedenborg.  Open  this  poem  of  prose,  the 
Conjugal  Love,  to  me,  a  temple,  though  in  ruins;  the 
sacred  fane,  clothed  in  mist,  filled  with  moonlight,  of  a 
great  though  broken  mind.  What  spittle  of  critic  epithets 
stains  all  here?  'Lewd/  'sensual/  'lecherous/  'coarse/ 
'licentious/  etc.  Of  course  these  judgments  are  final. 
There  is  no  appeal  from  the  tobacco-juice  of  an  expec 
torating  and  disdainful  virtue.  Out  with  Swedenborg! 

"Here  is  Goethe:  the  horrified  squealing  of  prudes  is 
not  yet  silent  over  pages  of  Wilhelm  Meister:  that  high 
and  chaste  book,  the  Elective  Affinities,  still  pumps  up 
oaths  from  clergymen.  Walpurgis  has  hardly  ceased 
its  uproar  over  Faust.  Out  with  Goethe! 

"Here  is  Cervantes:  open  Don  Quixote,  paragon  of 
romances,  highest  result  of  Spain,  best  and  sufficient 
reason  for  her  life  among  the  nations,  a  laughing  novel 
which  is  a  weeping  poem.  But  talk  such  as  this  of 
Sancho  Panza  and  Tummas  Cecial  under  the  cork  trees, 
and  these  coarse  stories  and  bawdy  words,  and  this  free 
and  gross  comedy — is  it  to  be  endured?  Out  with 
Cervantes! 

"And  here  is  Lord  Bacon  himself,  in  one  of  whose 
pages  you  may  read,  done  from  the  Latin  by  Spedding 
into  a  magnificent  golden  thunder  of  English,  the  abso 
lute  defense  of  the  free  spirit  of  the  great  authors, 
coupled  with  stern  rebuke  to  the  spirit  that  would  pick 
and  choose,  as  dastard  and  effeminate.  Out  with  Lord 
Bacon! 


"Not  him  only,  not  these  only,  not  only  the  writers 
are  under  the  ban.  Here  is  Phidias,  gorgeous  sculptor 
in  gold  and  ivory,  giant  dreamer  of  the  Infinite  in 
marble;  but  he  will  not  use  the  fig-leaf.  Here  is  Rem 
brandt,  who  paints  the  Holland  landscape,  the  Jew,  the 
beggar,  the  burgher,  in  lights  and  glooms  of  Eternity; 
and  his  pictures  have  been  called  'indecent/  Here  is 
Mozart,  his  music  rich  with  the  sumptuous  color  of  all 
sunsets;  and  it  has  been  called  'sensual.'  Here  is 
Michael  Angelo,  who  makes  art  tremble  with  a  new 
and  strange  afflatus,  and  gives  Europe  novel  and  sub 
lime  forms  that  tower  above  the  centuries,  and  accost 
the  Greek;  and  his  works  have  been  called  'bestial/ 
Out  with  them  all!" 

In  his  summing  up,  stirred  to  wrath  by  the  low  tone 
of  contemporary  comment,  O'Connor  proceeded  to  ex 
pound  the  philosophy  of  literary  ideals: 

"The  level  of  the  great  books  is  the  Infinite,  the  Ab 
solute.  To  contain  all,  by  containing  the  premise,  the 
truth,  the  idea  and  feeling  of  all,  to  tally  the  universe 
by  profusion,  variety,  reality,  mystery,  enclosure,  power, 
terror,  beauty,  service;  to  be  great  to  the  utmost  con- 
ceivability  of  greatness — what  higher  level  than  this  can 
literature  spring  to?  Up  on  the  highest  summit  stand 
such  works,  never  to  be  surpassed,  never  to  be  sup 
planted.  Their  indecency  is  not  that  of  the  vulgar; 
their  vulgarity  is  not  that  of  the  low.  Their  evil,  if  it 
be  evil,  is  not  there  for  nothing — it  serves;  at  the  base 
of  it  is  Love.  Every  poet  of  the  highest  quality  is,  in 
the  masterly  coinage  of  the  author  of  Leaves  of  Grass, 
a  kosmos.  His  work,  like  himself,  is  a  second  world, 

[30] 


full  of  contrarieties,  strangely  harmonized,  and  moral 
indeed,  but  only  as  the  world  is  moral.  Shakespeare  is 
all  good,  Rabelais  is  all  good,  Montaigne  is  all  good,  not 
because  all  the  thoughts,  the  words,  the  manifestations 
are  so,  but  because  at  the  core,  and  permeating  all,  is 
an  ethic  intention — a  love  which,  through  mysterious, 
indirect,  subtle,  seemingly  absurd,  often  terrible  and 
repulsive,  means,  seeks  to  uplift,  and  never  to  degrade. 
It  is  the  spirit  in  which  authorship  is  pursued,  as  Augus 
tus  Schlegel  has  said,  that  makes  it  either  an  infamy  or 
a  virtue;  and  the  spirit  of  the  great  authors,  no  matter 
what  their  letter,  is  one  with  that  which  pervades  the 
Creation.  In  mighty  love,  with  implements  of  pain 
and  pleasure,  of  good  and  evil,  Nature  develops  man; 
genius  also,  in  mighty  love,  with  implements  of  pain  and 
pleasure,  of  good  and  evil,  develops  man;  no  matter 
what  the  means,  that  is  the  end. 

"Tell  me  not,  then,  of  the  indecent  passages  of  the 
great  poets.  The  world,  which  is  the  poem  of  God,  is 
full  of  indecent  passages!  'Shall  there  be  evil  in  a  city 
and  the  Lord  hath  not  done  it?'  shouts  Amos.  'I  form 
the  light,  and  create  darkness;  I  make  peace,  and  create 
evil;  I,  the  Lord,  do  all  these  things/  thunders  Isaiah. 
This/  says  Coleridge,  'is  the  deep  abyss  of  the  mystery 
of  God.'  Ay,  and  the  profound  of  the  mystery  of  genius 
also !  Evil  is  part  of  the  economy  of  genius,  as  it  is  part 
of  the  economy  of  Deity.  Gentle  reviewers  endeavor 
to  find  excuses  for  the  freedoms  of  geniuses.  'It  is  to 
prove  that  they  were  above  conventionalities/  'It  is 
referable  to  the  age/  Oh,  Ossa  on  Pelion,  mount  piled 
on  mount,  of  error  and  folly!  What  has  genius,  spirit 

[31] 


of  the  absolute  and  the  eternal,  to  do  with  the  defini 
tions  of  position,  or  conventionalities,  or  the  age? 
Genius  puts  indecencies  into  its  works,  because  God 
puts  them  into  His  world.  Whatever  the  special  reason 
in  each  case,  this  is  the  general  reason  in  all  cases.  They 
are  here,  because  they  are  there.  That  is  the  eternal 
why.  No;  Alphonso  of  Castile  thought  that,  if  he  had 
been  consulted  at  the  Creation,  he  could  have  given  a 
few  hints  to  the  Almighty.  Not  I.  I  play  Alphonso 
neither  to  genius  nor  to  God. 

"What  is  this  poem,  for  the  giving  of  which  to  Amer 
ica  and  the  world,  and  for  that  alone,  its  author  has 
been  dismissed  with  ignominy  from  a  Government 
office?  It  is  a  poem  which  Schiller  might  have  hailed 
as  the  noblest  specimen  of  native  literature,  worthy  of  a 
place  beside  Homer.  It  is,  in  the  first  place,  a  work 
purely  and  entirely  American,  autochthonic,  sprung 
from  our  own  soil;  no  savor  of  Europe  nor  the  past,  nor 
of  any  other  literature  in  it;  a  vast  carol  of  our  own  land, 
and  of  its  Present  and  Future;  the  strong  and  haughty 
psalm  of  the  Republic.  There  is  not  one  other  book,  I 
care  not  whose,  of  which  this  can  be  said.  I  weigh  my 
words  and  have  considered  well.  Every  other  book  by 
an  American  author  implies,  both  in  form  and  sub 
stance,  I  cannot  even  say  the  European,  but  the  British 
mind.  The  shadow  of  Temple  Bar  and  Arthur's  Seat 
lies  dark  on  all  our  letters.  Intellectually  we  are  still 
a  dependency  of  Great  Britain,  and  one  word — colonial 
— comprehends  and  stamps  our  literature.  In  no  liter 
ary  form,  except  our  newspapers,  has  there  been  any 
thing  distinctively  American.  I  note  our  best  books — 


the  works  of  Jefferson,  the  romances  of  Brockden 
Brown,  the  speeches  of  Webster,  Everett's  rhetoric,  the 
•divinity  of  Channing,  some  of  Cooper's  novels,  the  writ 
ings  of  Theodore  Parker,  the  poetry  of  Bryant,  the 
masterly  law  arguments  of  Lysander  Spooner,  the  mis 
cellanies  of  Margaret  Fuller,  the  histories  of  Hildreth, 
Bancroft  and  Motley,  Ticknor's  History  of  Spanish 
Literature,  Judd's  Margaret,  the  political  treatises  of 
Calhoun,  the  rich,  benignant  poems  of  Longfellow,  the 
ballads  of  Whittier,  the  delicate  songs  of  Philip  Pendle- 
ton  Cooke,  the  weird  poetry  of  Edgar  Poe,  the  wizard 
tales  of  Hawthorne,  Irving's  Knickerbocker,  Delia  Ba 
con's  splendid  sibyllic  book  on  Shakespeare,  the  polit 
ical  economy  of  Carey,  the  prison  letters  and  immortal 
speech  of  John  Brown,  the  lofty  patrician  eloquence  of 
Wendell  Phillips,  and  those  diamonds  of  the  first  water, 
the  great  clear  essays  and  greater  poems  of  Emerson. 
This  literature  has  often  commanding  merits,  and  much 
of  it  is  very  precious  to  me;  but  in  respect  to  its  national 
character,  all  that  can  be  said  is  that  i  t  is  tinged,  more 
or  less  deeply,  with  America;  and  the  foreign  model, 
the  foreign  standards,  the  foreign  ideas,  dominate  over 
it  all. 

"At  most,  our  best  books  were  but  struggling  beams; 
behold  in  Leaves  of  Grass  the  immense  and  absolute 
sunrise!  It  is  all  our  own!  The  nation  is  in  it!  In 
form  a  series  of  chants,  in  substance  it  is  an  epic  of 
America.  It  is  distinctively  and  utterly  American. 
Without  model,  without  imitation,  without  reminis 
cence,  it  is  evolved  entirely  from  our  own  polity  and 
popular  life.  Look  at  what  it  celebrates  and  contains! 

[33] 


hardly  to  be  enumerated  without  sometimes  using  the 
powerful,  wondrous  phrases  of  its  author,  so  indissoluble 
are  they  with  the  things  described.  The  essences,  the 
events,  the  objects  of  America;  the  myriad,  varied  land 
scapes;  the  teeming  and  giant  cities;  the  generous  and 
turbulent  populations;  the  prairie  solitudes,  the  vast 
pastoral  plateaus;  the  Mississippi;  the  land  dense  with 
villages  and  farms;  the  habits,  manners,  customs;  the 
enormous  diversity  of  temperatures;  the  immense  geog 
raphy;  the  red  aborigines  passing  away,  'charging  the 
water  and  the  land  with  names';  the  early  settlements; 
the  sudden  uprising  and  defiance  of  the  Revolution;  the 
august  figure  of  Washington;  the  formation  and  sacred- 
ness  of  the  Constitution;  the  pouring  in  of  the  emi 
grants;  the  million-masted  harbors;  the  general  opu 
lence  and  comfort;  the  fisheries,  and  whaling,  and  gold- 
digging,  and  manufactures,  and  agriculture;  the 
dazzling  movement  of  new  States,  rushing  to  be  great; 
Nevada  rising,  Dakota  rising,  Colorado  rising;  the 
tumultuous  civilization  around  and  beyond  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  thundering  and  spreading;  the  Union  im 
pregnable;  feudalism  in  all  its  forms  forever  tracked  and 
assaulted;  liberty  deathless  on  these  shores;  the  noble 
and  free  character  of  the  people;  the  equality  of  male 
and  female;  the  ardor,  the  fierceness,  the  friendship,  the 
dignity,  the  enterprise,  the  affection,  the  courage,  the 
love  of  music,  the  passion  for  personal  freedom;  the 
mercy  and  justice  and  compassion  of  the  people;  the 
popular  faults  and  vices  and  crimes;  the  deference  of 
the  President  to  the  private  citizen;  the  image  of  Christ 
forever  deepening  in  the  public  mind  as  the  brother  of 

[34] 


despised  and  rejected  persons;  the  promise  and  wild 
song  of  the  future;  the  vision  of  the  Federal  Mother, 
seated  with  more  than  antique  majesty  in  the  midst  of 
her  many  children;  the  pouring  glories  of  the  hereafter; 
the  vistas  of  splendor,  incessant  and  branching,  the  tre 
mendous  elements,  breeds,  adjustments  of  America — 
with  all  these,  with  more,  with  everything  transcendent, 
amazing  and  new,  undimmed  by  the  pale  cast  of 
thought,  and  with  the  very  color  and  brawn  of  actual 
life,  the  whole  gigantic  epic  of  our  continental  being  un 
winds  in  all  its  magnificent  reality  in  these  pages.  To 
understand  Greece,  study  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey; 
study  Leaves  of  Grass  to  understand  America.  Her 
democracy  is  there.  Would  you  have  a  text-book  of 
democracy?  The  writings  of  Jefferson  are  good;  De 
Tocqueville  is  better;  but  the  great  poet  always  con 
tains  historian  and  philosopher — and  to  know  the  com 
prehending  spirit  of  this  country,  you  shall  question 
these  insulted  pages." 


[35] 


IV 

IT  would  be  wearisome  to  refer  in  detail  to  the  numer 
ous  estimates  of  Leaves  of  Grass  which  have  found 
print  since  1870.  The  increasing  literature  about  Whit 
man  bespeaks  interest,  and  the  kindly  tenor  of  most 
commentators  testifies  to  the  enlarging  appreciation  of 
the  Good  Gray  Poet.  Within  the  past  decade  there 
have  appeared  seven  biographies  of  him,  all  but  one  of 
them  wholly  and  frankly  lavish  in  his  praise,  and  that 
one  not  unfriendly  in  criticism.  Numerous  book  chap 
ters  have  dealt  with  him  in  recognition  of  his  genius,  and 
only  here  and  there  have  there  been  suggestions  of 
earlier  absolute  condemnation.  Among  the  biographers 
have  been,  in  chronological  sequence,  Richard  Maurice 
Bucke,  John  Burroughs,  John  Addington  Symonds, 
Isaac  Hull  Platt,  Geo.  R.  Carpenter,  Bliss  Perry,  Henry 
Bryan  Binns.  Among  the  notable  contributors  of  book 
chapters  on  Whitman  may  be  mentioned  from  a  list  of 
two  score  or  more,  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  in  his 
Studies  of  Men  and  Books;  A.  T.  Quiller-Couch,  in  his 
Adventures  in  Criticism;  Thomas  Wentworth  Higgin- 
son,  in  his  Contemporaries;  Havelock  Ellis,  in  The  New 
Spirit;  Edward  Dowden,  in  his  Studies  in  Literature; 

[37] 


Edmund  Gosse,  in  his  Critical  Kit-Kats;  Hamilton  Ma- 
bie,  in  his  Backgrounds  of  Literature;  Brander  Mat 
thews,  in  his  Aspects  of  Fiction;  Edmund  Clarence 
Stedman,  in  his  Poets  of  America;  George  Santayana, 
in  The  Poetry  of  Barbarism;   and  Algernon  Charles 
Swinburne,  in  his  Studies  in  Prose  and  Poetry.    These 
have  been  mentioned  specifically  because  they  average 
the  good  and  the  bad  rather  than  join  in  a  chorus  of 
indiscriminate  praise.     Indeed,  the  two  last  mentioned 
are  distinctly  hostile  in  tone.     Swinburne,  who  in  his 
earlier  volume  Songs  before  Sunrise,  addressed  a  long 
poem,  To  Walt  Whitman  in  America,  fervent  in  praise, 
"Send  but  a  song  oversea  for  us, 
Heart  of  their  hearts  who  are  free, 
Heart  of  their  singer  to  be  for  us 
More  than  our  singing  can  be," 

revoked  all  his  former  words  of  sympathetic  admiration 
and  in  his  later  volume,  printed  in  1894,  vehemently  fell 
upon  Whitman  in  this  strain: 

"There  is  no  subject  which  may  not  be  treated  with 
success  (I  do  not  say  there  are  no  subjects  which  on 
other  than  artistic  grounds  it  may  not  be  as  well  to 
avoid,  it  may  not  be  better  to  pass  by)  if  the  poet,  by 
instinct  or  by  training,  knows  exactly  how  to  handle  it 
aright,  to  present  it  without  danger  of  just  or  rational 
offense.  For  evidence  of  this  truth  we  need  look  no 
further  than  the  pastorals  of  Virgil  and  Theocritus.  But 
under  the  dirty  clumsy  paws  of  a  harper  whose  plectrum 

[38] 


is  a  muck-rake  any  tune  will  become  a  chaos  of  discords, 
though  the  motive  of  the  tune  should  be  the  first  prin 
ciple  of  nature — the  passion  of  man  for  woman  or  the 
passion  of  woman  for  man.  And  the  unhealthily  dem 
onstrative  and  obtrusive  animalism  of  the  Whitmaniad 
is  as  unnatural,  as  incompatible  with  the  wholesome 
instincts  of  human  passion,  as  even  the  filthy  and  in 
human  asceticism  of  SS.  Macarius  and  Simeon  Stylites. 
If  anything  can  justify  the  serious  and  deliberate  dis 
play  of  merely  physical  emotion  in  literature  or  in  art, 
it  must  be  one  of  two  things;  intense  depth  of  feeling 
expressed  with  inspired  perfection  of  simplicity,  with 
divine  sublimity  of  fascination,  as  by  Sappho;  or  trans 
cendent  supremacy  of  actual  and  irresistible  beauty  in 
such  revelation  of  naked  nature  as  was  possible  to 
Titian.  But  Mr.  Whitman's  Eve  is  a  drunken  apple- 
woman,  indecently  sprawling  in  the  slush  and  garbage 
of  the  gutter  amid  the  rotten  refuse  of  her  overturned 
fruit-stall:  but  Mr.  Whitman's  Venus  is  a  Hottentot 
wench  under  the  influence  of  cantharides  and  adulter 
ated  rum." 

Weighing  the  good  and  the  bad,  Robert  Louis  Steven 
son  in  his  essay  does  not  stint  admiration  nor  withhold 
blame: 

"He  has  chosen  a  rough,  unrhymed,  lyrical  verse; 
sometimes  instinct  with  a  fine  processional  movement; 
often  so  rugged  and  careless  that  it  can  only  be  de 
scribed  by  saying  that  he  has  not  taken  the  trouble  to 
write  prose  *  *  *  and  one  thing  is  certain,  that 
no  one  can  appreciate  Whitman's  excellences  until  he 
has  grown  accustomed  to  his  faults." 

[39] 


Indicating  the  attitude  of  his  partisans,  John  Bur 
roughs'  summing  up  is  fairly  representative: 

"Just  as  ripe,  mellowed,  storied,  ivy-towered,  velvet- 
turfed  England  lies  back  of  Tennyson,  and  is  vocal 
through  him;  just  as  canny,  covenanting,  conscience- 
burdened,  craggy,  sharp-tongued  Scotland  lies  back  of 
Carlyle;  just  as  thrifty,  well-schooled,  well-housed,  pru 
dent  and  moral  New  England  lies  back  of  her  group  of 
poets,  and  is  voiced  by  them — so  America  as  a  whole, 
our  turbulent  democracy,  our  self-glorification,  our  faith 
in  the  future,  our  huge  mass-movements,  our  conti 
nental  spirit, our  sprawling,  sublime  and  unkempt  nature 
lie  back  of  Whitman,  and  are  implied  by  his  work." 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  book  to  interpret  Whit 
man  either  as  a  prophet  or  a  poet,  except  inferentially 
as  the  words  of  his  critics  may  carry  distinct  impres 
sions.  After  all,  the  justest  estimate  of  Whitman  and 
his  book  is  his  own.  Whitman's  puzzling  characteris 
tics  are  best  understood  if  we  realize  that  Leaves  of 
Grass  is  an  autobiography — and  an  extraordinarily  can 
did  one — of  a  man  whose  peculiar  temperament  found 
expression  in  prose-verse.  His  gentleness,  his  brusque- 
ness,  his  egotism,  his  humility,  his  grossness,  his  finer 
nature,  his  crudeness,  his  eloquence,  are  all  here.  To 
him  they  were  the  attributes  of  all  mankind. 
"I  am  of  old  and  young,of  the  foolish  as  much  as  the  wise; 
Regardless  of  others,  ever  regardful  of  others, 
Maternal  as  well  as  paternal,  a  child  as  well  as  a  man, 

[40] 


Stuff' d  with  the  stuff  that  is  coarse,  and  stuff'd  with 

the  stuff  that  is  fine." 

In  his  virile  young  manhood  he  announced  with  gus 
to:  "I  sound  my  barbaric  yawp  over  the  roofs  of  the 
world." 

In  his  serene  old  age  he  said:  "Over  the  tree-tops  I 
float  thee  a  song." 

And  this  was  his  conclusion:  "I  call  to  the  world  to 
distrust  the  accounts  of  my  friends,  but  listen  to  my 
enemies  as  I  myself  do.  I  charge  you  forever  reject  those 
who  would  expound  me,  for  I  cannot  expound  myself." 
Whoso  challenges  Whitman's  gift  of  song  may  not 
at  any  rate  deny  to  him  the  note  of  melody.  This  qual 
ity  is  strong  in  his  titles  particularly: 

Rise  O  days  from  your  fathomless  deeps. 

In  cabin'd  ships  at  sea. 

Out  of  the  cradle  endlessly  rocking. 

Sands  at  seventy. 

The  sobbing  of  the  bells. 

Soon  shall  the  winter's  foil  be  here. 

Thou  mother  with  thy  equal  brood. 

To  the  leaven'd  soil  they  trod. 

Yon  tides  with  ceaseless  swell. 

When  lilacs  last  in  the  dooryard  bloomed. 

Sparkles  from  the  wheel. 

Brother  of  all  with  generous  hand. 

As  a  strong  bird  on  pinions  free. 

[41] 


For  a  just  estimate  of  Whitman,  as  for  a  clear  com 
prehension  of  the  symbolism  contained  in  Leaves  of 
Grass,  a  few  blades  of  the  latter  will  not  suffice.  It 
must  be  all,  or  none.  The  two  poems  here  given  should 
be  taken,  therefore,  not  as  representative  of  the  whole, 
but  as  types  of  two  widely  variant  moods: 

OF  olden  time,  when  it  came  to  pass 
That  the  beautiful  god,  Jesus,  should  finish  his 
work  on  earth, 

Then  went  Judas,  and  sold  the  divine  youth, 
And  took  pay  for  his  body. 

Curst  was  the  deed,  even  before  the  sweat  of  the  clutch 
ing  hand  grew  dry; 

And  darkness  frown'd  upon  the  seller  of  the  like  of  God, 

Where,  as  though  earth  lifted  her  breast  to  throw  him 
from  her,  and  heaven  refus'd  him, 

He  hung  in  the  air,  self-slaughter'd. 

The  cycles,  with  their  long  shadows,  have  stalked  si 
lently  forward 

Since  those  days — many  a  pouch  enwrapping  meanwhile 
Its  fee,  like  that  paid  for  the  son  of  Mary. 

And  still  goes  one,  saying, 

"What  will  ye  give  me,  and  I  will  deliver  this  man  unto 

you?" 
And  they  make  the  covenant,  and  pay  the  pieces  of  silver. 

[42] 


Look  forth,  deliverer, 

Look  forth,  first-born  of  the  dead, 

Over  the  tree-tops  of  Paradise; 

See  thyself  in  yet-continued  bonds, 

Toilsome  and  poor,  thou  bear'st  man's  form  again, 

Thou  art  reviled,  scourged,  put  into  prison, 

Hunted  from  the  arrogant  equality  of  the  rest; 

With  staves  and  swords  throng  the  willing  servants  of 
authority, 

Again  they  surround  thee,  mad  with  devilish  spite; 

Toward  thee  stretch  the  hands  of  a  multitude,  like  vul 
tures'  talons, 

The  nearest  spit  in  thy  face,  they  smite  thee  with  their 
palms; 

Bruised,  bloody,  and  pinion'd  is  thy  body, 

More  sorrowful  than  death  is  thy  soul. 

Witness  of  anguish,  brother  of  slaves, 

Not  with  thy  price  closed  the  price  of  thine  image: 

And  still  Iscariot  plies  his  trade. 

THE  SOUL, 
Forever  and  forever — longer  than  soil  is  brown  and 
solid — longer  than  water  ebbs  and  flows. 

ii 

Each  is  not  for  its  own  sake, 

I  say  the  whole  earth  and  all  the  stars  in  the  sky  are  for 
religion's  sake. 

[43] 


Ill 

In  this  broad  earth  of  ours, 
Amid  the  measureless  grossness  and  the  slag, 
Enclosed  and  safe  within  its  central  heart, 
Nestles  the  seed  perfection. 
By  every  life  a  share  or  more  or  less, 
None  born  but  it  is  born,  conceal'd  or  unconcealed  the 
seed  is  waiting. 

IV 

Do  you  not  see  O  my  brothers  and  sisters? 
It  is  not  chaos  or  death — it  is  form,  union,  plan — it  is 
eternal  life — it  is  Happiness. 

v 

The  song  is  to  the  singer,  and  comes  back  most  to  him. 
The  love  is  to  the  lover,  and  comes  back  most  to  him — 
it  cannot  fail. 

VI 

I  see  Hermes,  unsuspected,  dying,  well-beloved,  saying 

to  the  people  Do  not  weep  for  me, 
This  is  not  my  true  country,  I  have  lived  banistidfrom  my 

true  country,  I  now  go  back  there, 
I  return  to  the  celestial  sphere  where  every  one  goes  in  his 

turn. 

This  is  an  attempt,  incomplete  but  fairly  represent 
ative  as  to  sources,  to  trace  the  changing  view  during 
half  a  century  of  Leaves  of  Grass  and  its  author. 

[44] 


SONNETS  and  apostrophes  in  large  number  ad 
dressed  to  Walt  Whitman  during  the  later  years  of 
his  life,  and  since  his  passing  away,  have  appeared  in 
fugitive  form  in  widely  separated  sources.  A  selection 
of  these  may  prove  of  interest  by  reason  of  the  names 
attached,  as  well  as  because  of  the  subject: 


fTTMHIE  good  gray  poet"  gone!    Brave  hopeful  Walt! 

A  He  might  not  be  a  singer  without  fault, 
And  his  large  rough-hewn  rhythm  did  not  chime 
With  dulcet  daintiness  of  time  and  rhyme. 
He  was  no  neater  than  wide  Nature's  wild, 
More  metrical  than  sea  winds.     Culture's  child, 
Lapped  in  luxurious  laws  of  line  and  lilt, 
Shrank  from  him  shuddering,  who  was  roughly  built 
As  cyclopean  temples.     Yet  there  rang 
True  music  through  his  rhapsodies,  as  he  sang 
Of  brotherhood,  and  freedom,  love  and  hope,  . 
With  strong,  wide  sympathy  which  dared  to  cope 
With  all  life's  phases,  and  call  nought  unclean. 
Whilst  hearts  are  generous,  and  whilst  woods  are  green, 
He  shall  find  hearers,  who  in  a  slack  time 

[45] 


Of  puny  bards  and  pessimistic  rhyme, 

Dared  to  bid  men  adventure  and  rejoice. 

His  "yawp  barbaric"  was  a  human  voice; 

The  singer  was  a  man.     America 

Is  poorer  by  a  stalwart  soul  today, 

And  may  feel  pride  that  she  hath  given  birth 

To  this  stout  laureate  of  old  Mother  Earth. 

— Punch 


[46] 


GOOD-BYE,  WALT! 
Good-bye  from  all  you  loved  of  Earth — 
Rock,  tree,  dumb  creature,  man  and  woman — 
To  you  their  comrade  human. 

The  last  assault 

Ends  now,  and  now  in  some  great  world  has  birth 
A  minstrel,  whose  strong  soul  finds  broader  wings, 

More  brave  imaginings. 

Stars  crown  the  hill-top  where  your  dust  shall  lie, 
Even  as  we  say  good-bye, 
Good-bye,  old  Walt! 

— Edmund  Clarence  Stedman 


[47] 


HE  was  in  love  with  truth  and  knew  her  near — 
Her  comrade,  not  her  suppliant  on  the  knee: 
She  gave  him  wild  melodious  words  to  be 
Made  music  that  should  haunt  the  atmosphere. 
She  drew  him  to  her  bosom,  day-long  dear, 
And  pointed  to  the  stars  and  to  the  sea, 
And  taught  him  miracles  and  mystery, 
And  made  him  master  of  the  rounded  year. 
Yet  one  gift  did  she  keep.     He  looked  in  vain, 
Brow-shaded,  through  the  darkness  of  the  mist, 
Marking  a  beauty  like  a  wandering  breath 
That  beckoned,  yet  denied  his  soul  a  tryst: 
He  sang  a  passion,  yet  he  saw  not  plain 
Till  kind  earth  held  him  and  he  spake  with  death. 

— Harrison  S.  Morris 


[48] 


SOME  find  thee  foul  and  rank  and  fetid,  Walt, 
Who  cannot  tell  Arabia  from  a  sty. 
Thou  followeth  Truth,  nor  feareth,  nor  doth  halt; 
Truth:  and  the  sole  uncleanness  is  a  lie. 

— William  Watson 


PRESAGE  of  strength  yet  to  be,  voice  of  the  youngest 
of  Time, 

Singer  of  the  golden  dawn, 

From  thy  great  message  must  come  light  for  the  better 
ing  days, 

Joy  to  the  hands  that  toil, 
Might  to  the  hopes  that  droop, 
Power  to  the  Nation  reborn, 

Poet  and  master  and  seer,  helper  and  friend  unto  men, 
Truth  that  shall  pass  into  the  life  of  us  all! 

—Louis  J.  Block 


[50] 


SEND  but  a  song  oversea  for  us, 
Heart  of  their  hearts  who  are  free, 
Heart  of  their  singer  to  be  for  us 
More  than  our  singing  can  be; 
Ours,  in  the  tempest  at  error, 
With  no  light  but  the  twilight  of  terror; 
Send  us  a  song  oversea! 

Sweet-smelling  of  pine-leaves  and  grasses, 
And  blown  as  a  tree  through  and  through 

With  the  winds  of  the  keen  mountain  passes, 
And  tender  as  sun-smitten  dew; 

Sharp-tongued  as  the  winter  that  shakes 

The  wastes  of  your  limitless  lakes, 
Wide-eyed  as  the  sea-line's  blue. 

O  strong-winged  soul  with  prophetic 
Lips  hot  with  the  bloodbeats  of  song, 

With  tremor  of  heartstrings  magnetic, 
WTith  thoughts  as  thunders  in  throng, 

With  consonant  ardours  of  chords 

That  pierce  men's  souls  as  with  swords 
And  hale  them  hearing  along. 

— Algernon  Swinburne 


SERENE,  vast  head,  with  silver  cloud  of  hair, 
Lined  on  the  purple  dusk  of  death 
A  stern  medallion,  velvet  set — 
Old  Norseman  throned,  not  chained  upon  thy  chair; 
Thy  grasp  of  hand,  thy  hearty  breath 
Of  welcome  thrills  me  yet 
As  when  I  faced  thee  there. 

Loving  my  plain  as  thou  thy  sea, 
Facing  the  east  as  thou  the  west, 
I  bring  a  handful  of  grass  to  thee, 
The  prairie  grasses  I  know  the  best — 
Type  of  the  wealth  and  width  of  the  plain, 
Strong  of  the  strength  of  the  wind  and  sleet, 
Fragrant  with  sunlight  and  cool  with  rain — 
I  bring  it,  and  lay  it  low  at  thy  feet, 
Here  by  the  eastern  sea. 

— Ham/in  Garland 


[52] 


I  TOSS  upon  Thy  grave, 
(After  Thy  life  resumed,  after  the  pause,  the  back 
ward  glance  of  Death; 

Hence,  hence  the  vistas  on,  the  march  continued, 
In  larger  spheres,  new  lives  in  paths  untrodden, 
On!  till  the  circle  rounded,  ever  the  journey  on!) 
Upon  Thy  grave, — the  vital  sod  how  thrilled  as  from 

Thy  limbs  and  breast  transpired, 
Rises  the  spring's  sweet  utterance  of  flowers, — 
I  toss  this  sheaf  of  song,  these  scattered  leaves  of  love! 
For  thee,  Thy  Soul  and  Body  spent  for  me, 
— And  now  still  living,  now  in  love,  transmitting  still 

Thy  Soul,  Thy  Flesh  to  me,  to  all! — 
These  variant  phrases  of  the  long-immortal  chant 
I  toss  upon  Thy  grave! 

— George  Cabot  Lodge 


[53 


1AM  no  slender  singing  bird 
That  feeds  on  puny  garden  seed! 
My  songs  are  stronger  than  those  heard 
In  ev'ry  wind-full,  shallow  reed! 
My  pipes  are  jungle-grown  and  need 
A  strong  man's  breath  to  blow  them  well; 
A  strong  soul's  sense  to  solve  their  spell 
And  be  by  their  deep  music  stirred. 

My  voice  speaks  not,  in  lisping  notes, 

The  madrigals  of  lesser  minds! 

My  heart  tones  thunder  from  the  throats 

Of  throbbing  seas  and  raging  winds; 

And  yet,  the  master-spirit  finds 

The  tenderness  of  mother  earth 

Is  there  expressed,  despite  the  dearth 

Of  tinkle  tunes  like  dancing  motes! 

My  hand  strokes  not  a  golden  lyre 
Threaded  with  silver — spider  spun! 
The  strings  I  strike  are  strands  of  fire, 
Strung  from  Earth's  center  to  the  Sun! 
Thrilled  with  passion,  ev'ry  one! 
With  songs  of  forest,  corn,  and  vine; 
Of  rushing  water,  blood,  and  wine; 
Of  man's  conception  and  desire! 


[54] 


But  listen,  comrade!     This  I  say: 

In  all  of  all  I  give  my  heart! 

With  lover's  voice  I  bid  you  stay 

To  share  with  me  the  better  part 

Of  all  my  days!  nights!  thoughts!  and  start 

With  far-spread  arms  to  welcome  you, 

And  we  will  shout  a  song  so  true 

That  it  shall  ring  for  aye  and  aye. 

— Ray  Clarke  Rose 


[55] 


YOUR  lonely  muse,  unraimented  with  rhyme, 
Her  hair  unfilleted,  her  feet  unshod, 
Naked  and  not  ashamed  demands  of  God 
No  covering  for  her  beauty's  youth  or  prime. 
Clad  but  with  thought,  as  space  is  clad  with  time, 
Or  both  with  worlds  where  man  and  angels  plod, 
She  runs  in  joy,  magnificently  odd, 
Ruggedly  wreathed  with  flowers  of  every  clime. 
And  you  to  whom  her  breath  is  sweeter  far 
Than  choicest  attar  of  the  martyred  rose 
More  deeply  feel  mortality's  unrest 
Than  poets  born  beneath  a  happier  star, 
Because  the  pathos  of  your  grand  repose 
Shows  that  all  earth  has  throbbed  within  your  breast, 

— Albert  Edmund  Lancaster 


[56] 


THEY  say  that  thou  art  sick,  art  growing  old, 
Thou  Poet  of  unconquerable  health, 
With  youth  far-stretching,  through  the  golden  wealth 
Of  autumn,  to  Death's  frostful,  friendly  cold; 
The  never-blenching  eyes,  that  did  behold 
Life's  fair  and  foul,  with  measureless  content, 
And  gaze  ne'er  sated,  saddened  as  they  bent 
Over  the  dying  soldier  in  the  fold 
Of  thy  large  comrade  love: — then  broke  the  tear! 
War-dream,  field-vigil,  the  bequeathed  kiss, 
Have  brought  old  age  to  thee;  yet,  Master,  now, 
Cease  not  thy  song  to  us;  lest  we  should  miss 
A  death-chant  of  indomitable  cheer, 
Blown  as  a  gale  from  God; — Oh,  sing  it  thou! 

— Aaron  Leigh 


[57] 


OPURE  heart  singer  of  the  human  frame 
Divine,  whose  poesy  disdains  control 
Of  slavish  bonds!  each  poem  is  a  soul, 
Incarnate  born  of  thee,  and  given  thy  name. 
Thy  genius  is  unshackled  as  a  flame 
That  sunward  soars,  the  central  light  its  goal; 
Thy  thoughts  are  lightnings,  and  thy  numbers  roll 
In  Nature's  thunders  that  put  art  to  shame. 
Exalter  of  the  land  that  gave  thee  birth, 
Though  she  insult  thy  grand  gray  years  with  wrong 
Of  infamy,  foul-branding  thee  with  scars 
Of  felon-hate,  still  shalt  thou  be  on  earth 
Revered,  and  in  Fame's  firmament  of  song 
Thy  name  shall  blaze  among  the  eternal  stars! 

— Leonard  Wheeler 


[58] 


O  TITAN  soul,  ascend  your  starry  steep, 
On  golden  stair,  to  gods  and  storied  men ! 
Ascend!  nor  care  where  thy  traducers  creep. 

For  what  may  well  be  said  of  prophets,  when 
A  world  that's  wicked  comes  to  call  them  good? 
Ascend  and  sing!  As  kings  of  thought  who  stood 

On  stormy  heights,  and  held  far  lights  to  men, 
Stand  thou,  and  shout  above  the  tumbled  roar, 
Lest  brave  ships  drive  and  break  against  the  shore. 
What  though  thy  sounding  song  be  roughly  set? 

Parnassus'  self  is  rough!     Give  thou  the  thought, 
The  golden  ore,  the  gems  that  few  forget; 

In  time  the  tinsel  jewel  will  be  wrought. 
Stand  thou  alone,  and  fixed  as  destiny, 

An  imaged  god  that  lifts  above  all  hate; 

Stand  thou  serene  and  satisfied  with  fate; 
Stand  thou  as  stands  the  lightning-riven  tree, 
That  lords  the  cloven  clouds  of  gray  Yosemite. 
Yea,  lone,  sad  soul,  thy  heights  must  be  thy  home; 

Thou  sweetest  lover!  love  shall  climb  to  thee 
Like  incense  curling  some  cathedral  dome, 

From  many  distant  vales.     Yet  thou  shalt  be, 
O  grand,  sweet  singer,  to  the  end  alone. 

But  murmur  not.     The  moon,  the  mighty  spheres, 

Spin  on  alone  through  all  the  soundless  years; 
Alone  man  comes  on  earth;  he  lives  alone; 
Alone  he  turns  to  front  the  dark  unknown. 

— Joaquin  Miller 

[59] 


1KNEW  there  was  an  old,  white-bearded  seer 
Who  dwelt  among  the  streets  of  Camden  town; 
I  had  the  volumes  which  his  hand  wrote  down — 
The  living  evidence  we  love  to  hear 
Of  one  who  walks  reproachless,  without  fear. 
But  when  I  saw  that  face,  capped  with  its  crown 
Of  snow-white  almond-buds,  his  high  renown 
Faded  to  naught,  and  only  did  appear 
The  calm  old  man,  to  whom  his  verses  tell, 
All  sounds  were  music,  even  as  a  child; 
And  then  the  sudden  knowledge  on  me  fell, 
For  all  the  hours  his  fancies  had  beguiled, 
No  verse  had  shown  the  Poet  half  so  well 
As  when  he  looked  into  my  face  and  smiled. 

— Linn  Porter 


FRIEND  WHITMAN!  wert  thou  less  serene  and 
kind, 

Surely  thou  mightest  (like  the  bard  sublime), 
Scorned  by  a  generation  deaf  and  blind, 
Make  thine  appeal  to  the  avenger  TIME; 
For  thou  art  none  of  those  who  upward  climb, 
Gathering  roses  with  a  vacant  mind. 
Ne'er  have  thy  hands  for  jaded  triflers  twined 
Sick  flowers  of  rhetoric  and  weeds  of  rhyme. 
Nay,  thine  hath  been  a  Prophet's  stormier  fate. 
While  LINCOLN  and  the  martyr'd  legions  wait 
In  the  yet  widening  blue  of  yonder  sky, 
On  the  great  strand  below  them  thou  art  seen, 
Blessing,  with  something  Christ-like  in  thy  mien, 
A  sea  of  turbulent  lives,  that  break  and  die. 

— Robert  Buchanan 


[6:] 


DARKNESS  and  death?     Nay,  Pioneer,  for  thee 
The  day  of  deeper  vision  has  begun; 
There  is  no  darkness  for  the  central  sun 
Nor  any  death  for  immortality. 
At  last  the  song  of  all  fair  songs  that  be, 
At  last  the  guerdon  of  a  race  well  run, 
The  upswelling  joy  to  know  the  victory  won, 
The  river's  rapture  when  it  finds  the  sea. 
Ah,  thou  art  wrought  in  an  heroic  mould, 
The  Modern  Man  upon  whose  brow  yet  stays 
A  gleam  of  glory  from  the  age  of  gold — 
A  diadem  which  all  the  gods  have  kissed. 
Hail  and  farewell !     Flower  of  the  antique  days, 
Democracy's  divine  protagonist. 

— Francis  Howard  Williams 


62 


TRANQUIL  as  stars  that  unafraid 
Pursue  their  way  through  space. 
Vital  as  light,  unhoused  as  wind, 
Unloosed  from  time  and  place; 

Solemn  as  birth,  and  sane  as  death, 
Thy  bardic  chan tings  move; 
Rugged  as  earth,  and  salt  as  sea, 
And  bitter-sweet  as  love. 

— May  Morgan 


ONE  master  poet  royally  her  own, 
Begot  of  Freedom,  bore  our  Western  World: 
A  poet,  native  as  the  dew  impearl'd 
Upon  her  grass;  a  brother,  thew  and  bone, 
To  mountains  wild,  vast  lakes  and  prairies  lone; 
One,  life  and  soul,  akin  to  speech  unfurl'd, 
And  zeal  of  artisan,  and  song  not  curl'd 
In  fronded  forms,  or  petrified  in  tone. 
High  latitudes  of  thought  gave  breath  to  him; 
The  paps  he  suck'd  ran  not  false  shame  for  milk; 
No  bastard  he!  but  virile  truth  in  limb 
And  soul.     A  Titan  mocking  at  the  silk 
That  bound  the  wings  of  song.     A  tongue  of  flame, 
Whose  ashes  gender  an  immortal  name. 

— Joseph  W.  Chapman 


THOU  lover  of  the  cosmos  vague  and  vast, 
In  which  thy  virile  mind  would  penetrate 
Unto  the  rushing,  primal  springs  of  fate, 
Ruling  alike  the  future,  present,  past: 
Now,  having  breasted  waves  beyond  death's  blast, 
New  Neptune's  steeds  saluted,  white  and  great, 
And  entered  through  the  glorious  Golden  Gate. 
And  gained  the  fair  celestial  shores  at  last, 
Still  worship'st  thou  the  Ocean?  thou  that  tried 
To  comprehend  its  mental  roar  and  surge, 
Its  howling  as  of  victory  and  its  dirge 
For  continents  submerged  by  shock  and  tide. 
By  that  immortal  ocean  now  what  cheer? 
Do  crews  patrol  and  save  the  same  as  here? 

— Edward  S.  Creamer 


AJL  hail  to  thee!  WALT  WHITMAN!  Poet,  Pro 
phet,  Priest! 

Celebrant  of  Democracy!     At  more  than  regal  feast 
To  thee  we  offer  homage,  and  with  our  greenest  bay 
We  crown  thee  Poet  Laureate  on  this  thy  natal  day. 
We  offer  choice  ascription — our  loyal  tribute  bring, 
In  this  the  new  Olympiad  in  which  thou  reignest  king. 
POET  of  the  present  age,  and  of  aeons  yet  to  be, 
In  this  the  chosen  homestead  of  those  who  would  be 

free — 

Free  from  feudal  usage,  from  courtly  sham  and  cant; 
Free  from  kingcraft,  priestcraft,  with  all  their  rot  and 

rant! 
PROPHET  of  a  race  redeemed  from  all  conventual 

thrall, 

Espouser  of  equal  sexship  in  body,  soul,  and  all ! 
PRIEST  of  a  ransom'd  people,  endued  with  clearer 

light; 

A  newer  dispensation  for  those  of  psychic  sight. 
We  greet  thee  as  our  mentor,  we  meet  thee  as  our  friend, 
And  to  thy  ministrations  devotedly  we  lend 
The  aid  that  comes  from  fealty  which  thou  hast  made 

so  strong, 
Thro*  touch  of  palm,  and  glint  of  eye,  and  spirit  of  thy 

song. 

We  magnify  thy  mission,  we  glorify  thy  aim, 
Unfalteringly  adhered  to  through  ill-report  and  blame — 

[66] 


The  fretting  of  the  groundlings,  the  fumings  of  the  pit, 
The  jibes  and  jeers  and  snarls  and  sneers  which  men 

mistake  for  wit. 
We  knew  the  rising  splendor  of  thy  sun  could  never 

wane 

Until,  the  earth  encompass'd,  it  sank  in  dazzling  flame. 
In  faith  assured  we  waited  as  in  patience  thou  didst 

wait, 

Knowing  full  well  the  answer  must  sooner  come  or  late. 
And  come  it  has,  sufficingly,  the  discord  disappears 
Until  today  again  is  heard  the  music  of  the  spheres 
Proclaiming  thee  the  well-beloved,  peer  of  the  proudest 

peers. 

— Henry  L.  Eonsall 


[67] 


HE  fell  asleep  when  in  the  century's  skies 
The  paling  stars  proclaimed  another  day — 
He,  genial  still,  amidst  the  chill  and  gray, 
With  smiling  lips  and  trustful,  dauntless  eyes; 
He,  the  Columbus  of  a  vast  emprise, 
Whose  realization  in  the  future  lay; 
He,  who  stepped  from  the  well-worn,  narrow  way 
To  walk  with  Poetry  in  larger  guise. 
And  fortunate,  despite  of  transient  griefs, 
The  years  announce  him  in  a  new  born  age; 
The  ship  of  his  fair  fame,  past  crags  and  reefs, 
Sails  bravely  on,  and  less  and  less  the  rage 
Of  gainsaying  winds  becomes;  while  to  his  phrase 
The  world  each  day  gives  ampler  heed  and  praise ! 

— William  Struthers 


[68] 


HERE  health  we  pledge  you  in  one  draught  of  song. 
Caught  in  this  rhymster's  cup  from  earth's  delight, 
Where  English  fields  are  green  the  whole  year  long — 
The  wine  of  might, 
That   the  new-come  spring  distills,  most  sweet  and 

strong, 
In  the  viewless  air's  alembic,  that's  wrought  too  fine  for 

sight. 

Good  health!  we  pledge,  that  care  may  lightly  sleep, 
And  pain  of  age  be  gone  for  this  one  day, 
As  of  this  loving  cup  you  take,  and,  drinking  deep, 
Are  glad  at  heart  straightway 
To  feel  once  more  the  friendly  heat  of  the  sun 
Creative  in  you  (as  when  in  youth  it  shone), 
And  pulsing  brainward  with  the  rhythmic  wealth 
Of  all  the  summer  whose  high  minstrelsy 
Shall  soon  crown  field  and  tree, 
To  call  back  age  to  youth  again,  and  pain  to  perfect 

health. 

—Ernest  Rhys 


I  LOAF  and  invite  my  soul 
And  what  do  I  feel? 

An  influx  of  life  from  the  great  central  power 
That  generates  beauty  from  seedling  to  flower. 
I  loaf  and  invite  my  soul 
And  what  do  I  hear? 
Original  harmonies  piercing  the  din 
Of  measureless  tragedy,  sorrow  and  sin. 
I  loaf  and  invite  my  soul 
And  what  do  I  see? 

The  temple  of  God  in  the  perfected  man, 
Revealing  the  wisdom  and  end  of  earth's  plan. 

— Elizabeth  Porter  Gould 


[70] 


HE  passed  amid  the  noisy  throngs, 
His  elbow  touched  with  theirs; 
They  grumbled  at  their  petty  wrongs, 
Their  woes  and  cares; 

They  asked  if  "Princeton  stood  to  win"; 

Or  what  they  should  invest; 
They  told  with  gusto  and  with  grin 

Some  futile  jest. 

They  jostled  him  and  passed  him  by, 

Nor  slacked  their  eager  pace; 
They  did  not  mark  that  noble  eye, 

That  noble  face. 

So  carelessly  they  let  him  go, 
His  mien  they  could  not  scan, — 

Thinker  whom  all  the  world  would  know, 
Our  greatest  man. 

Max  J.  Herzberg 


HERE  ends  this  book  written   by  Henry  Eduard 
Legler,  arranged  in  this  form  by  Laurence  C. 
Woodworth,  Scrivener,  and  printed  for  the  Brothers 
of  the  Book  at  the  press  of  The  Faithorn  Company, 
Chicago,  1916. 


Incipit  Vita  Nova 


— 


RECE1V 


SEP  5   '67-31EJ 


LD2lA-60m-2.';T 

/-u-9A1slO)4.6b 


